Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

by Natalie Goldberg

Writing is a communal act.

Even if we go off alone to write in the wilderness, we have to commune with ourselves and everything around us: the desk, the trees, the birds, the water, the typewriter.

Kill the idea of the lone, suffering artist. We suffer anyway as human beings. Don’t make it any harder on yourself.

Tell me who you really are: “I am the frost on the window, the cry of a young wolf, the thin blade of grass.”

know where you are, no matter how busy you are.

You can’t divorce yourself from parts of yourself.

A person may not be sure if she can go some place, but it is important, especially for a beginning writer, to make clear, assertive statements.

Making statements is practice in trusting your own mind, in learning to stand up with your thoughts.

So even though life is not always so clear, it is good to express yourself in clear, affirmative statements.

Another thing you should watch out for are questions.

When you are writing, if you write a question, that is fine. But immediately go to a deeper level inside yourself and answer it in the next line.

Writing is the act of burning through the fog in your mind.

be aware of your verbs and the power they have and use them in fresh ways.

When you select a café to write in, you must establish a relationship.

It is good to give ourselves a writing room and a place to put our writing tools, but we should know ourselves well enough not to become lost in interior decoration.

“You should walk side by side, not face to face.” That is how we should approach what we need to say: not head-on and aggressively, but with a little side dance.

There is no perfect atmosphere, notebook, pen, or desk, so train yourself to be flexible.

PUSH YOURSELF BEYOND when you think you are done with what you have to say.

Doubt is torture.

If we give ourselves fully to something, it will be clearer when it might be appropriate to quit. It is a constant test of perseverance.

you can’t rest on your success. Or your failure.

Do not be tossed away by your achievements or your fiascoes.

Step through your resistances right now and write something great. Right now. This is a new moment.

It’s enough to know you want to write. Write.

Writing is not therapy, though it may have a therapeutic effect.

Writing is deeper than therapy.

“Why do I write?” or “Why do I want to write?,” but don’t think about it.

That is good to remember. What is important is not just what you do—“I am writing a book”—but how you do it, how you approach it, and what you come to value.

you have relationships with everything, not just with people. You have a relationship with the stairs, your porch, the car, the cornfields, and the clouds.” We are a part of everything. When we understand this, we see that we are not writing, but everything is writing through us.

There are many realities. We should remember this when we get too caught in being concerned about the way the rest of the world lives or how we think they live.

The chasm between the great love we feel for the world when we sit and write about it and the disregard we give it in our own human lives.

Let yourself totally be a writer from now on.

What is the first sentence? What makes it finished?

virtue in dependability, perseverance, and regularity. These qualities should be taught, but not in a black-and-white way.

If you are bored for years of writing, it means you are not connecting with yourself and the process.

It is important to feel out the situation. Do not make up your own rules ahead of time.

That is the challenge: to let writing teach us about life and life about writing. Let it flow back and forth.

So it is very deep to be a writer. It is the deepest thing I know. And I think, if not this, nothing—it will be my way in the world for the rest of my life. I have to remember this again and again.

It’s your life, begin from it.

Art is communication.

Taste the bitterness of isolation, and from that place feel a kinship and compassion for all people who have been alone. Then in your writing lead yourself out of it by thinking of someone and wanting to express your life to him. Reach out in your writing to another lonely soul.

whatever it takes to simply see the world from another angle.

we should be able to look outside ourselves with a sense of generosity.

We are many things.

We are not one thing.

In the ability to connect with one people lies the chance to feel compassion for all people.

To begin with, write like you talk, nothing fancy.

“If only one line in the poem has energy, then cut the rest out and leave only that one line.”

Like a Samurai with an empty mind who cuts his opponents in half, be willing to not be sentimental about your writing when you reread it.

Don’t do that to yourself—“I am here, but I should be there.” It was torture for me. Wherever you are is the place to be writing from.